


March 2020

by clokkerfoot



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Cutesy, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, Pining, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 09:05:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5534090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clokkerfoot/pseuds/clokkerfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The events of the seven years leading up to Drs. Geiszler and Gottlieb's assignment to the Hong Kong Shatterdome in 2020.</p>
            </blockquote>





	March 2020

**Author's Note:**

> This is literally the first time I've ever written these two, or, indeed, anything vaguely Pacific Rim related. Sorry in advance. All information (inaccurate or otherwise) sourced from the _Pacific Rim_ Wikia.

_Hermann Gottlieb - August 2013_

The monster had ripped a hole in San Francisco.

Trespasser. That’s what they were calling it. Hermann did not believe that the senseless creature deserved a name.

The world had never quite seen a threat so profoundly unknowable, and Hermann was no exception. He was only twenty-four years old, yet he had never come across a force of nature - or, indeed, a force conceived by humanity - quite as brutal as the beast that rose from the water.

Trespasser was nothing short of a plague.

Hermann was fascinated by it.

-

_Newton Geiszler - February 2014_

God, Kaijus were cool.

They looked like they’d been pulled right outta one of Newt’s comic books. He got a tattoo of the newest one, Hundun, less than a day after the nuclear strike in the Philippines.

The blood had barely dried on his skin before he decided to write a letter to the kid of the guy who’d come out with an idea to kill a Kaiju, if another one decided to appear.

Newt _kinda_ hoped another one would.

-

_Hermann Gottlieb - September 2014_

Without fail, Dr Newton Geiszler would send a letter to Hermann’s apartment within one week of a Kaiju attack.

Hermann had responded to Dr Geiszler’s initial enthusiastic letter in February with what he imagined to be a rather curt, dismissive reply, but the man had continued to send letters. The fifth arrived in June, shortly after the third Kaiju attack in Mexico.

Now, six days after Scissure’s attack in Sydney, another letter had arrived on Hermann’s doorstep, taped to a brown-paper parcel.

The parcel contained a raw resin cast of Scissure.

“Typical,” Hermann muttered, mostly to himself.

He set the cast upon his desk, before picking up a fountain pen and a pad of paper, an unbidden smile on his lips.

-

_Newton Geiszler - April 2015_

Hermann had _finally_ started replying to Newt’s letters.

It’d taken the stubborn bastard something like eight months to finally reply. Newt just assumed he’d liked the resin cast Newt’d made of Scissure. Newt had an identical tattoo right across the tops of his collarbones.

Hermann kept a lot of details to himself, no matter how often Newt shoved little questions about the Jaeger program into his letters. All Newt knew was that Hermann had been jumped right to the front of the queue, and he’d just enlisted in the Jaeger Academy after Karloff ripped Vancouver to shreds.

Lucky bastard. Newt thought the Jaegers were cooler than the Kaijus, after seeing Karloff taken down by Brawler Yukon. They were _seriously_ badass robots.

But he would _never_ admit that to Hermann.

-

_Hermann Gottlieb - May 2016_

Hermann was not thinking about Dr Geiszler.

No, he absolutely was not. He was thinking about Onibaba and its attack on Tokyo. He was thinking about Coyote Tango, and how they were going to improve it for the next Kaiju attack. He was thinking about the plans for the latest Jaeger; Gipsy Danger.

Hermann definitely _was_ _not_ thinking about the newest enlistee to the Jaeger Academy.

And Hermann was _definitely_ not thinking about him when he took his date to bed three weeks later.

-

_Newton Geiszler - May 2017_

Hermann was cute.

Yeah, he was a total dick and not at all like the man who wrote the letters Newt got once or twice a month, but he was still cute.

They ended up wrapped around one another in the Sydney Shatterdome lab after a particularly heated debate over the K-Science treatment of Kaiju Blue. Newt was gay, of course, but he’d had no idea that Hermann was too.

Hell, if he’d known how quickly they’d end up going for it on the nearest flat surface, Newt would’ve insisted on meeting Hermann _years_ ago.

-

_Hermann Gottlieb - November 2018_

Every worker in the Sydney Shatterdome knew that Hermann preferred his own company, especially following the explosive incident with Dr Geiszler in the laboratory the previous summer.

Only Hermann and Dr Geiszler knew exactly what had transpired between the two of them once the terrified new inductees had fled from the room, but Hermann constantly worried that the others would discover his secret.

Hermann briefly followed a relationship with a young inductee who was covered from head to toe in kaleidoscopic tattoos and who wore black, thick-rimmed glasses. The young man agreed with Hermann far too often. Their relationship lasted less than a month.

Shortly after, he met Vanessa. She was almost beautiful enough to make him forget the name ‘Newton’.

Almost.

-

_Newton Geiszler - July 2019_

Newt was celebrating Gipsy’s defeat of Clawhook with his boyfriend-of-the-month when the mail was delivered.

Even though Hermann hadn’t sent him a letter for two years, and even though _Newt_ hadn’t sent a letter to the man who was probably the love of his life for two years, he still leapt up whenever the mailman dropped by.

Unbelievably, there was a letter from the Sydney Shatterdome.

“Hermann,” Newt whispered, staring at the familiar fountain-pen scrawl on the front of the envelope.

His boyfriend - what was his name, again? - asked what Newt was droning on about.

Newt silenced him with a kiss and an hour in bed. Newt didn’t even try to pretend that he didn’t fantasise about Hermann when he slept with other men. Not anymore.

-

_Hermann Gottlieb - March 2020_

Following the disaster in Alaska, Hermann was reassigned to the Shatterdome in Hong Kong. He was to have a partner in the laboratory there, despite his constant protests.

The very idea of a partner was abhorrent to him. He had worked with Dr Geiszler briefly in 2017, and after their… _incident_ , he had refused a partner repeatedly.

Just _knowing_ Dr Geiszler had caused Hermann great inconveniences. He felt nauseous when giving his vows when he wed Vanessa. On their wedding night, Dr Geiszler’s image had somehow crept into his mind's eye. Hermann doubted whether he even loved his wife, so encompassing was his affection for Dr Geiszler.

Why did he love Dr Geiszler so?

“Dr Gottlieb.”

For once, Pentecost was a welcome distraction. Hermann blinked to rouse himself from thoughts of Dr Geiszler, and looked up at Pentecost’s static face.

Suddenly, a voice erupted from behind the stern Marshal.

“Well, fuck me! Hermann!”

Hermann’s immediate thought was to admonish the owner of the voice for cursing in front of Pentecost, but within a few, short, utterly life-ruining seconds, the familiarity of the voice made itself known to Hermann.

Dr Geiszler.

He leapt out from behind Pentecost in a whirl of leather, and a second later Hermann found himself enveloped in a hug. Dr Geiszler hadn’t changed. Age had served him well, even if he _had_ gained two full armfuls of tattoos.

For a moment, he wanted to relax into Dr Geiszler’s familiar touch - it had been so long, after all - but he caught sight of Pentecost’s raised eyebrow.

“You two know each other?” Pentecost asked almost suspiciously, eye twitching.

“We worked together in Sydney,” Hermann explained, forcing his arms not to wrap around Dr Geiszler’s shoulders, “Dr Geiszler was, reluctantly, vital to the construction of Gipsy Danger, sir.”

Pentecost nodded, “Yes, I _am_ aware. I’ll leave you two to…” Pentecost gestured wildly in their general direction, and Hermann wondered if Pentecost could see Dr Geiszler’s hand on his right buttock, “... well, I’ll leave you to catch up.”

“Yes, sir,” Hermann nodded.

Once Pentecost had left the room, Hermann extracted himself from Dr Geiszler’s grip.

They stared at one another for a moment. The anger and shameless dislike that had existed all those years ago had vanished in the blink of an eye.

Hermann wondered if Dr Geiszler also felt like his heart was fit to burst.

“Hermann,” Dr Geiszler said, his voice light as a breeze.

“Dr Geiszler,” Hermann replied, almost automatically. For some reason, he could not drag his gaze away from Dr Geiszler’s face. It had been so long. So very, very long.

He opened his mouth to say more, but Dr Geiszler beat him to the punch. Dr Geiszler muttered something that sounded like ‘ _My name is Newt, you formal bastard_ ’ and then kissed Hermann.

It was heavy and desperate, and Hermann no longer had doubt that Dr-- that Newt-- no, that wasn’t right. Hermann no longer had doubt that _Newton_ felt the same way as he did.

For a while, Hermann fell into Newton’s arms as if he had never left, as if they had not spent three years apart, but his wedding band felt heavy on his left hand even as he touched the bare flesh of Newton’s stomach, as he carded his fingers through Newton’s hair.

“I’m married,” Hermann whispered, refusing to look down at Newton. He worried that the sight of Newton on his knees would cause him to do something he might regret.

“I know,” Newton replied, a little muffled.

Hermann looked down - and, yes, the sight of Newton with his mouth pressed against the white fabric of Hermann’s underclothes _was_ an ungodly one - and pushed Newton away from him.

“You know?”

Newton laughed. It was as innocent as Hermann remembered, “Of course I know. You think I’d lose track of my favourite scientist?”

Hermann raised his eyebrow, “I always assumed _you_ were your favourite scientist.”

“You’re more stupid than I give you credit for, then,” Newton snorted. He rose to his feet and kissed Hermann sweetly, “I know you’re gay and hopelessly in love with me; _your_ favourite scientist.”

“I’m not gay,” Hermann objected.

Newton smiled evilly and pressed himself against Hermann, laughing louder as Hermann’s body told the truth of his affection, “Not gay, huh?”

And now, Hermann was blushing. Of course. As if this hadn’t been humiliating enough. Newton kissed him again, his grin lost to Hermann’s tongue.

“We absolutely cannot work together if you’re going to treat me like this, Newton,” Hermann mumbled, “I have a reputation to uphold. I despise my partners. I do _not_ fraternise with them.”

Newton pulled away. The smile had returned.

“I’m sure we can put on a good show, Hermann,” Newton said confidently, “After all, you _are_ the most annoying person I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr [here](http://clokkerfoot.tumblr.com/).


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